Dragons Hobbies Forum

General Category => General Discussions => Topic started by: Dragon on October 26, 2009, 21:00:49

Title: What is a browser?
Post by: Dragon on October 26, 2009, 21:00:49

A couple years ago I had an assignment to help write a test for a basic computer class. Since it was a basic class I thought I'd cover some stuff about browsers in addition to other things, just to keep things reasonable. I turned in the test and was told that it was too difficult. Apparently something that I found quite simple was completely unknown to most students, even for a computer class in a world heavily reliant on the web.

Today I came across an article that said only 8% of people surveyed in Times Square knew what a browser was (http://www.sitepoint.com/blogs/2009/10/27/google-explains-browsers/). I'd have to guess that Times Square has a pretty well rounded group of people coming through, even if it isn't an average location. I just asked my wife about it and she was only partially correct. Wow. Anyway, check out this site: http://www.whatbrowser.org/

And... if you know what a browser it, I guess congratulations is in order.  :D

Title: Re: What is a browser?
Post by: the unnamable on October 26, 2009, 22:26:34

i find that very shocking with the amount of time people spend on the web i would have thought that would be commen knowledge

Title: Re: What is a browser?
Post by: tampamac2002 on October 27, 2009, 13:16:17

I wonder how many know what an OS is?

Title: Re: What is a browser?
Post by: Dragon on October 27, 2009, 23:57:42

I asked my wife if she knew what an "operating system" was. She started off with a pretty good answer.

"Isn't that Windows? It's what makes it so the screen isn't just black with a bunch of jumbled letters."

I thought that was a decent answer. Then I asked if she knew any other operating systems.

"Firefox? Opera?"

So she has these names somewhere in her brain... just not sure where to connect them.  :D

Title: Re: What is a browser?
Post by: tampamac2002 on October 28, 2009, 08:30:25

I'm not sure how well my wife will do, I plan to pose the two questions to her when I get home tonight.
She may get the operating system ?, I don't think she'll do well with the browser though.
I don't think she ever heard of opera or firefox.

Title: Re: What is a browser?
Post by: TylerChuit on October 28, 2009, 10:41:27

Quote from: the unnamable on October 26, 2009, 22:26:34

i find that very shocking with the amount of time people spend on the web i would have thought that would be commen knowledge

I used to do tech support a billion years ago (well, last century) and the guy who was in charge of buying hardware used to call computers "CPUs". ::)

Title: Re: What is a browser?
Post by: Dragon on October 29, 2009, 09:11:48

Yeah, I've heard them called CPUs quite a bit too.